It is important, critical really, to seek to read more books well, rather than to merely read more books. Too often, we readers can be so focused on breaking our reading records, that we fail to slow down and let the reading we’ve done do its work.
Reflection. Study. Writing. Rereading. All these are best added to the practice of reading. In fact, that was the primary motivator for starting this website in the first place, that is, to slow down. To not just read books, but to think through them. To learn from them. To study them. To reflect on them. To be shaped by them.
Riding the Surface or Tunneling Like a Mole
All this is heavily on my mind as I write my yearly Top 5 post, as this was a personal best in my number of books read this year (yes, I count audiobooks). In one sense, sure, that’s an accomplishment. But, at the end of the day, it’s highly relative. Besides the fact that one book can be read in an hour and another takes nearly 100 hours, I’d take the person who reads just five books really well in one year over the other who breezes over 50.
Steinbeck captured this difference so well when he contrasted two characters in East of Eden:
Samuel road lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.1
Or as Richard Foster put it in more literal terms, “The key in all of this is for us to read slowly. The point is not how many books we read but how much of what we read we are able to draw into our own life experiences.”2
I believe that in our fast-paced, consumeristic culture, these reminders are all the more important. Of course, none of this is to downplay the importance of reading a lot of books. There is no need to dichotomize reading well and reading widely. Ideally, we’d do both. However, for those who have the reading itch, the temptation tends to be greater to pursue the latter at the expense of the former.
Top 5 Nonfiction Books
And with that reminder, below is my Top 5 nonfiction list for 2025. I think this was the hardest year yet to whittle the list down (which is probably why I cheated on number three).
5. Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? by Jonathan Wells
At an absolute minimum, I make sure to read at least one science and faith book per year. I consider it my pet apologetics topic, so it’s important to me to stay involved in the discussion. Jonathan Wells was a very influential figure within the world of Intelligent Design (ID) science. He died in late 2024. I listened to a tribute podcast about him and was inspired to pick up one of his most well-known works, Icons of Evolution.
Although certainly a bit dated, the arguments still hold a lot of weight. Wells is punchy and accessible as he clearly lays out examples of evolutionary overreach. At times, even as an ID proponent myself, I felt inclined to fact-check him on a statement or two, and not once did he disappoint. The book does an excellent job of highlighting the ways in which images and icons can both intentionally and unintentionally be used to shape the public’s social imaginary. From fruit flies to fossils, Wells demonstrates that, because of this power, we need to carefully examen the classic “proof” case-studies for evolution. I’m aware of the many criticisms of the book, but I believe that, to a large degree, they are more of a result of anti-ID rhetoric than critical scientific thought.
4. The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology by Jeremy Treat
Atonement remains a hot topic within Christian circles. Influential writer John Mark Comer made some more waves about atonement in a series of Instagram posts this year, describing the final nail in the coffin having been put into the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA). I am not convinced. Nor is Jeremy Treat.
Too often, different explanations of the atonement get cast as competing theories. Nowhere is this more common within modern debates than with the views of Christus Victor and PSA. It’s either one of the other, or so we are told. Treat, working from a historically grounded perspective, offers a better, more biblical way. His primary argument can be summarized as Christus Victor through PSA. He makes a very strong case for this, with a balanced and charitable tone. I believe too many Christians cast a straw-man case against PSA, and thus are too quick to cast it aside. The Crucified King is a helpful antidote toward the erection of such straw-men.
3. An Experiment in Criticism and On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature by C.S. Lewis
One of my goals is to read at least one new C.S. Lewis book every year, until I’ve read them all. One of my problems with that goal, is that his books are just so good, that it’s hard not to keep rereading them. Earlier this year, I did a bit of a dive into literary theory and these two books were part of that adventure. As always with Lewis, they did not disappoint.
Lewis is so perceptive when it comes to the way in which stories work within the imagination and form us as human beings. He is just as perceptive about what it means to write a good story. These two books are an excellent place for a writer or literary critic to engage in order to hone their craft. I’m certain that I will be returning to them in the future.
2. Christianity & Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen
In the spirit of reading Lewis, I always make some effort (and it does take effort) to read “old books.” Lewis would certainly chide me for being imbalanced when it comes to the ratio of new to old books that I read. Although the general idea of what makes a book “old” will vary greatly, a good starting place is whether the author is still alive. Even this isn’t perfect, as reading a book from the 1970s by a living author is much different from reading a book written in 2024 by an author who died this year.
All that said, I’ve got a list of “old” books that I am slowly trying to work through. Christianity & Liberalism has been at the top of that list for a while. Written in 1923, its relevance for today is mind-blowing. Which, of course, is so often the case for tried and true classics, no matter the century. Sometimes, I struggle with older reads, due to—well, their readability. That was not the case with Machen. He develops a punchy and profound argument which demonstrates the clear ways in which liberal theology is really an entirely different religion from orthodox Christianity.
1. Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland
One of my reading trends is that if the same source keeps getting cited, I’m eventually going to read that source. This typically results in some of my heavier reads, such as The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright or Warranted Christian Belief by Alvin Plantinga. It’s also why the daunting A Secular Age by Charles Taylor is sitting on deck on my desk.
As an apologetics enthusiast with this habit, reading Dominion was pretty much a must. The amount of times Holland’s work gets referenced is truly astounding. One of my top books of 2024, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality by Glen Scrivener, was essentially an adapted pop-level apologetic crafted heavily from the arguments of Dominion. Scrivener’s title captures so much of what Dominion achieved and argued. Essentially, Holland, a renowned historian, who (prior to writing the book) would not identify as a Christian, argues persuasively that the core values of our modern world are directly dependent upon Christianity.
Unlike The Air We Breathe, Dominion is a fat 624-page read. Despite its length, I was impressed with how readable the work was. This is primarily due to the narrative form of the argument. At times, this style can leave the reader wanting a more robust or in-depth look at a particular development. Nevertheless, the hype around Dominion is not exaggerated. It is a difficult book to ignore for any apologist, and once you pick it up, it is just as difficult to put down.
2025 Wrap Up
This has been another great year of reading, but I’m even more excited for 2026. The last seven years (and the entire life of this website and my formal writing life), have been spent while working both a full-time job and being a part-time college student. With my degree finally complete, I’m excited about how much more time and mental energy I’ll have to both read and write. This upcoming year, I’m planning on submitting a number of articles for publication. I’m also going to be seeking to gain traction on getting my second novel published (the novel is complete). And, of course, there will still be a steady stream of blog posts.
Happy New Year! And, happy reading!
Previous Years
Notes
- John Steinbeck, East of Eden (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2002), 280
- Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth Special Anniversary Edition (New York, NY: Harper One, 2018),
Photo by John Michael Thomson on Unsplash
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